Father's Bed (父親的床)

by Peter Y. Woo, 4/20/2001, updated 5/2002

    Have you had the experience of sleeping on your father's bed? Not very often, I guess.

    I had it last night. I wish I had this experience more often, during the last 40 years. He has gone to the hospital, and unfortunately, not expected to come home again. Even when he has improved a bit and expected to leave hospital, he is to go to a nursing home for the remainder of his days. In other words, he is not expected to ever set foot into this room again. No more. He has seen the last of it.

    As I was lying in his bed, I noticed there was a bell near his head, for him to call Mom or call the nurse. Why? because his voice is weak due to his frail health. There was a push-on-or-off lamp hanging on the side wall, which is like a sunny face of 5 inches wide. All this reflects how weakened he is physically. Life from day to day is now a struggle. Of course there is the grace of God. But what did I do over the last 10 years of his progressive weakening, to encourage his spirit, to tell him news about friends? Very little, I must say.

    They say you cannot understand a man unless you have walked with him for a mile. I say you cannot understand a man unless you have slept once in his bed.

    I notice Father is very frugal, compared with my way of living in US. His table is not cluttered, and the few cabinets in his room, which has no closet, contain all his clothes, his books, his memorabilia, his medicine. The room is no more than 8 by 12 feet. There are a few photos here and there. The windows open to the mountain, plus all the concrete jungle around, plus the bus terminal and the highway down below. The noises of the buses are enormous, even at 1:30 a.m. I was lucky to be able to fall asleep.

    In contrast to the scarcity of his earthly possessions, his spiritual estate and assets are enormous. Just the lives he has touched and changed and consoled and encouraged are uncountable.

    Bitter tears came to me as I realized how unfamiliar am I with this man who has the closest genes to my genes. How often he would long for news from me and about me in US, for 40 years, but in many ways I am like the prodigal son, did not care a single bit for his longings and heartfelt wishes. Now I see that is sin, and I have lots of this, the sin of not caring for the precious feelings of one who longed for my communicating my day to day life with him.

    There is a Chinese poem which moved many to tears. It was written by some son who lost his father: "Trees wanted to calm down, but the wind won't stop its rustling. The son wanted to care for the parent, but who was no more..." I don't like the term "filial piety", because it is not a pious thing. I would call it sonhood, like manhood, the quality of being a son. God gives you the sonship. Have you lived up to your sonhood, and thank Him, and love Him. That is all that He wants.

    Some say, "I don't believe in the Biblical God." Then you will worship the god of selfcenteredness, selfwill, selfgratification. These gods are not as kind and loving and longing for your welfare, as the Christian God is. You can try to shout at the mountain, "Hello there, answer me." I will dare you shout to the skies, "Hello God, are you there? let me know if you do." May be you dare not, because you have no guts. You dare not face the duty of redirecting your life, once you find out that Love is really there ready to embrace you.

    But why be obstinate? You lose, if God is really there. Think.

Thanks to many prayers and loving concern, Dad recovered, got out of the hospital (through the front door, not the back door), and now lives with Mom at a retired home. A few months later he came home, sat on this same bed, and Mom could not hold her glee by calling me on the phone about it.